One picture does not a charity campaign make

Watching the people from Greenpeace dumping piles of coal outside Downing Street last week to protest about Tony Blair's record on climate change, I found myself wondering if this was the best way for them to spend their time.

I know that a PR stunt is usually cheaper than taking out adverts or spending thousands lobbying members of parliament. And I realise there's an obvious rationale to simplifying their arguments to attract the attention of those many people who take their view of the world solely from the tabloids.

But if Fathers 4 Justice has taught us anything, isn't it that we've all got a bit bored of these fake confrontations that seem designed only to feed the picture desks? Not even the police looked that bothered when the Greenpeace people arrived at Downing Street. No punches were thrown, no arrests were made, and it seems to me that, as the protest was purely a display for the media, there was no intent to do anything that would impact beyond a few newspaper articles.

This is slightly disappointing only because Greenpeace has an inspiring record as a campaigning organisation. It sets the agenda for others to follow. It is a tough operator, it gets its hands dirty and its work in the 80s and 90s on issues such as whaling and chemical dumping made the headlines on a regular basis.

The charity's culture remains a peculiar combination of hippy concern for the environment with the aggression of media bovver boys who know how to give Fleet Street a run for its money. Its most remarkable achievement was the Brent Spar campaign in 1995, which dominated national headlines and had 75% of the country saying they wanted Greenpeace to keep up their campaigning after it drew attention to Shell dumping an oil rig in the North sea.

Today, I fear, that impressive figure would be lower. Too many people go about their daily lives without giving the work of organisations such as Greenpeace a second thought.

One reason for this might be because their publicity stunts look contrived. Even the police have started to play along. Instead of wading in with truncheons flying, they now stand back, posing with their machine guns, while the photographers get the pictures they need for tomorrow's papers.

Eventually everyone gets bored and people move on. With no spontaneity, no loss of control and no screaming protesters getting clobbered by PC Plod, last week's event resembled a lame sci-fi movie starring people we've never heard of. It was over-produced and will not succeed in impressing people whose media intake is measured out in extreme doses.

Of course we don't hit this kind of problem with Children In Need. Here is a show that is run with the dotty enthusiasm you would expect to see at the local village fete. This is part of its appeal, and it would be churlish not to recognise the BBC's achievement in mobilising local communities around the UKto support that daft-looking bear with the eye patch.The big problem for Children In Need, though, is that they don't have Richard Curtis pulling the strings behind the scenes.

It is Curtis and his well-appointed followers who have become the most effective charity campaigners in the UK, outscoring Greenpeace, Oxfam, Children In Need and all the rest. This is because Comic Relief and Live 8 have been built upon collaborative PR strategies that engage government, sponsors, celebrities and the media - and they have a strong entertainment proposition that goes beyond getting a bunch of TV people together to chat over a glass of wine at Christmas.

There is a ruthless efficiency about the Live 8 PR machine that makes you sense that the scale of their achievement will be preserved in the history books, almost regardless of what occurs in the African countries that are struggling to establish themselves.

For Curtis, a more unlikely concern may appear in the shape of the resentment that has grown against his film Notting Hill. The quirky nature of the Portobello Road is being destroyed as global brands such as Starbucks, Orange and The Gap move in. The pubs are filled with braying Sloanes and the market traders mutter resentfully about "that bloody film".

It would be a cruel irony if this well connected and modest man's impressive reputation was undermined by the idea that he had contributed to the globalisation of the Notting Hill streets his film intended to celebrate.